


Watching Over Him While He Sleeps

by Southern_Breeze



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abusive Father, Child Abuse, Child trapped in scary situation, Gen, dead mother - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 15:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4570113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Southern_Breeze/pseuds/Southern_Breeze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This short story was originally written around 2005 and was intended to be a piece about child abuse and parental responsibility. <b>Warning:</b> This story is about child abuse, although certain aspects have been purposely exaggerated. Despite this, I wanted to post this story as I rather like it. I hope that other readers might be able to enjoy it as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watching Over Him While He Sleeps

****

**Watching Over Him as He Sleeps**

In the quiet of the night, he screams silently. His mouth is open wide and tears are clinging to his lashes like ruined lace, but he makes no sound. Perhaps he has already realized that it was only a nightmare, but it is more likely it’s the fear of his father that has a tight grip on his vocal cords. He is only seven, but he has already learned to scream, to cry, and to live without making a sound.

Sitting upright in bed, his dark eyes scan his small bedroom. He has very few toys, and the ones he does own are mostly second-handed, old, and worn. In his life, he has known nothing else, so he doesn’t really consider the concept of owning something new and expensive. The idea of getting a new bike for Christmas or his birthday is an implausible fairy tale to a child so strictly bound in a dark, cruel reality.

Finally, his gaze falls upon the closet door as his breath catches in his slender throat. Moving as silently as the night itself, he slips out of bed and crosses the bare, wooden floor until he reaches the door. It does not appear ominous. The door had been painted white at one time, but most of the paint has peeled and the wood beneath is pale brown and rather nondescript. There are gouge marks; made by an unknown weapon held by an unknown hand. He does not notice these things, however, for his eyes are held by a single, small photograph that he has clumsily pinned to the door with a thumbtack. In the picture there is a woman and she is laughing slightly as if happiness does not come easily for her. It is her mother and she is dead.

Every night, he retrieves the picture from its hiding place under the sagging dresser and pins it to the closet door so perhaps she could watch over him as he slept. He removes the picture early in the morning before his father wakes. After her death, his father had destroyed every last picture he had found of her. He had actually laughed as he shredded the images and threw the scraps in the air like confetti. The boy must have thought he had seen the last of his mother until he found a single photograph that had been hidden behind one of his baby photos in an old album. He treated the picture as his secret treasure.

Quickly, he ran his hand over the picture as if to draw strength from the warm of her smile that was frozen in time before placing one tiny hand upon the cold, alien doorknob. Taking a deep breath, he flung the door open wide and stood ready to confront the monster. There was no monster. There were only a few shirts hanging there; many too big, too small, and all old.

Releasing his breath, he closed the door as a look crosses his face as if he is mentally chastising himself for acting so childishly. Perhaps he feels that at seven he is too old to be looking for monsters in the closet. By the time he crawls in bed, he manages to laugh slightly even though his hands are still shaking. Despite the fact his eyes saw nothing, he doesn’t seem to be able to quite convince himself there was no monster. Laying down once more, he drew the cover up snugly under his chin. His eyes are closed so tightly that his young face looks lined and old. After a few minutes, however, his face relaxes somewhat as he drifts back to sleep.

Perhaps I am the reason he fears some unseen monster. While I’ve never hidden in the closet, I watch him every night. So many times I’ve resisted the urge to reach and touch him. I would sit weightlessly on his bed; my trembling, invisible fingers hovering inches above his tiny face as I longed to wipe away that single tear that always seemed to lie upon his cheek like a tiny, imperfect diamond. I had always resisted until tonight.

I just wanted to touch that freckled cheek, although a part of me had doubted either of us would feel anything as I had thought that all of my physical sensations had disappeared. To my surprise, there was a sense of contact as I felt a sort of cold energy surge from me as if I shot a bolt of frozen lightning. Immediately, his face had tightened as he moaned quietly in his sleep. I jumped back, regretful I had no resisted once more. I hadn’t meant for him to have a nightmare. I had only wanted to comfort him as I had when I was still the woman in the photograph.

As he sleeps, I cry invisible tears as silent as his screams. While I yet breathed, I did little to protect my son. I would hold him when he cried, and I would treat each of the new injuries. At that time, I would have contended I was doing all that I could do, but now I realize how little I truly did. Even before the cancer destroyed my body, I did almost nothing. Never did I take him away from here – away from this pain that ages seemingly ages him decades each day. I made half-hearted attempts, and I would say that I had tried. I would have said that then but not now.

Now, I cannot even hold him. When he cries, I can only watch. I stand nearby as a silent spectator; my heart breaking as I see his father strike him. I can’t even beg for the abuse to stop or use my body as a shield. My voice, my hands, and my soul are nothing more than an unseasonable winter breeze drifting through the room during the heat of an August night.

I watch as he sleeps; my immaterial hands trembling as I struggle against reaching out once more. I know I cannot touch him. I can only watch and cry.

Forever watching in the quiet of the night.


End file.
